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Saturday, October 27, 2012

Sail Number 2

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

The battle continues, after a congratulatory night out at Tony's, our favorite pizza place in La Paz.


Today we tackled the main sail.  This promised to be the most difficult for us to deal with, and it did not disappoint.

To be honest, outside of getting it out of the back cabin and onto the dock, it was not the sail itself that caused any problem, instead it was the horribly complicated sail cover that was the big challenge.  For the sail, we simply had to lay it out on the dock, insert the battens and then hoist it up the mast - pretty straight forward.  But first, the sail cover has to go on, threaded along the slot in the top of the boom, then inserting the stainless steel rods that give it some structure and then leaving it hanging there until the sail is ready to come down.  This all takes time and the longer we wait to put up the sail, the higher the chances that the wind will come up and make the job impossible - that is why we start these projects early in the morning when it is usually dead calm here.

Once the sail was completely attached and fully raised, we worked on attaching the lazy-jacks to the sail cover, a complicated task of guesswork as to where to tie on the various lines (I should have made better notes when we took it off).  After considerable trial and error, we were ready to let the sail down into the sail cover.  Of course, this is when the wind started to freshen up, coming directly abeam and making the sail billow out to the port side of the boat, getting caught in the lines for the lazy jacks and generally confirming why we always turn the boat into the wind to take the sail down - not really an option in the marina.

After another hour or so of fighting with the sail and cover and a lot of re-adjusting everything, it was basically done.  It still needs a little more tweaking to get the cover in exactly the right place, and I still have to rig the reefing lines, but I think the hard part is over.  Note: These are the types of projects that can really test relationships.

And as for the wind, it was probably associated with some cloud cover we got today.  Just so you don't think it is perfect all of the time here, look at those clouds in the sky.  On the other hand, the clouds just mean we get a little shade now and then, and the wind makes the heat much more bearable - we are certainly not complaining.

The wind and sun sure do wreak havoc on courtesy flags.

Oh, and the dock line inspector showed up today.  Sure hope we passed!

{GMST}24|9.3066|N|110|19.6068|W|La Paz, BCS, Mexico|La Paz, BCS, Mexico{GEND}








Friday, October 26, 2012

Sail number 1

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

Life goes on in Marina de La Paz...

Everyday is warm and sunny, but it is cooling off a bit.   The highs are now around 31 or 32 degrees and the nights are dipping below 20 degrees; a bit nicer for sleeping.  Still very humid.

Today we put up the first of our sails, the easiest one, the staysail (Notice the supervisory help we are getting from the local waterfowl).  It went pretty smoothly so now we are contemplating doing the main sail.  Susanne has completed the sewing repairs to the sail cover, so we don't have a lot of excuses left.

Meanwhile my current fight is with an ailing manual water pump in the bathroom.  It was working fine when we left it 3 months ago but now it does not work at all.  I have taken it apart and put it back together twice now, to no avail - I may need to find a service kit for it - fat chance of that though.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day!

BTW, this is our big shipment, sitting in a warehouse in San Diego, supposedly going out today...

 
{GMST}24|9.3066|N|110|19.6068|W|La Paz, BCS, Mexico|La Paz, BCS, Mexico{GEND}
 

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Back to the waiting game

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

What a difference a day makes.

In San Jose del Cabo, we awoke to find a wonderful, sunny day; just some remnants of wispy clouds hanging around.  The storm is all but forgotten.

We made an early start (got everything into the car by 9 AM) and took off for La Paz.  We took the west coast route on highway 19 via Cabo San Lucas and Todos Santos - it is slightly shorter than using highway 1, the way we came on the shuttle from La Paz three months ago.  It is quite scenic until you come to Todos Santos, where the road turns inland to cross the peninsula - that part of the highway appears to have been laid out by snapping a chalk like from La Paz to the west coast; it could not be any straighter, or more boring.

Travelling north along the west coast meant that we got closer to the areas harder hit by the passing of hurricane Paul.  The only evidence we could see was the frequent little mud(sand)slides that sometimes meant we had to change lanes or use the shoulder to avoid them.  In a couple of places there is some construction of new bridges, where the traffic is currently detoured down into a normally dry wash - one of these was more or less a river crossing.  Fortunately the construction crew was there to point out the best way to cross, and we had no problems.  It did make us very happy with our decision to stay another night in San Jose, since these spots would probably have been impassible during the storm itself.  Otherwise, the highway was a pleasant surprise, being a full 4-lane divided road for almost the entire length.  It took us a little less than 3 hours to get to the marina in La Paz.

Upon arrival in La Paz, we found the marina, and most of the town, untouched by Paul.  There were a few large holes in the road and some dirt piles in places, but I think this not that unusual here.

The boat appears to have weathered the time very well.  In fact, I have rarely seen the outside looking so clean - the result of the unusually large amount of rainfall they have had here while we have been gone.  We had some concerns about moisture since we had not experienced any rain on the boat in about 2 years, but the inside was nice and dry.

Of course, you cannot leave a boat for any length of time without something going wrong.  Our horribly expensive Magnum Inverter/Charger is totally hooped.  Nothing I do can make it do anything at all and no way to tell how long it has been this way.  Fortunately for us, we still had a few solar panels exposed on the dodger and the solar charger took over the job of keeping the batteries alive while we were away.

This is the 2nd time I have had to replace this unit.  The first time was after our rough ride around Cape Mendocino two years ago.  That time I was willing to concede that my splashing water on it probably contributed to its demise.  This time however, there is no excuse.  I left it in a dry, well-ventilated compartment with virtually no load on it - all it had to do was keep a trickle charge on the batteries.  To tell the truth, this unit has always been very touchy - it seems to overheat at every opportunity and has never been a friend to our SSB radio.

I have ordered a new Magnum unit (it is still the only Inverter/Charger that will fit in the space I have) and it will arrive around the end of the month.  Meanwhile, I have mounted all of our rail-mounted solar panels and they are perfectly capable of keeping up with our daily demand for 12V power, including keeping our refrigerator and freezer going.  Of course, with the inverter not working, all of our AC requirements are being provided by the shore power connection,

While we still had the car, we spent the first afternoon shopping at Walmart, where we picked up several more heavy provisioning items including a new, inexpensive home theatre system.  The last few days have been spent trying to figure out where to put all of the new stuff, considering we still have all of our sails and sail-covers stored inside.  We have decided to wait to see if the storm season if truly over before we bother putting the sails back on.  We did take the incredibly long stainless steel poles for the mainsail cover and the battens for same and stowed them on deck for now - with them inside, they extend from one end of the boat to the other and make access to everything a hassle.

For now, we are back to our usual waiting game.  We have lots of items on order, the new dinghy, a new chartplotter and radome, a new inverter/charger and a new Kindle reader.  We don't expect to see a lot of this stuff until the end of the month.  The marina has kindly booked us an extra month, until the end of November, if we need it.  Hopefully we will be long gone before then.

One note about the weather.  It is still pretty hot here.  The highs every day are around 33 degrees and the lows around 24.  With the current high humidity, we are finding it a bit hard to get used to.  Not that we are complaining - we could be freezing back in Edmonton right now.

{GMST}24|9.3066|N|110|19.6068|W|La Paz, BCS, Mexico|La Paz, BCS, Mexico{GEND}

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Edge of the storm

San Jose del Cabo, BCS, Mexico

A day for staying put!

We awoke this morning to the sound of howling winds and rain pounding on the windows of our room.  After looking at the latest storm tracks and looking out the window, we have decided to stay here in San Jose for another night.

The wind and rain is not so bad that it would normally stop us, but even the hotel staff are telling us it might not be a good idea to try the highway today.  There are some low spots on the road that will most likely flood and make the going treacherous.  We drove around town a bit this morning and found that a lot of the historic district is unreachable due to flooding on the narrow streets.  There is little drainage in the older part of town and what there is seems to be working backwards, with water coming out of the sewers into the streets.  Instead, we holed up at the nearby MacDonald's for a coffee (the Starbucks was just too crowded), then retreated to our room to wait out the worst of the storm.

Earlier today we walked down to the beach just to see the storm surge - pretty impressive and not a place I would like to be on a boat.  Seeing as how we are just on the edge of the hurricane, it is hard to imagine what they are facing further north.  As I write this, the eye of the storm has just made landfall in the vicinity of Mag bay, one of the stops we made two years ago on our way down the coast from San Diego.  It looks like the storm will steadily weaken now and be mostly a memory for us by this time tomorrow.  It appears that La Paz is also getting only a small taste of hurricane Paul and we are not anticipating any issues with the boat in Marina de La Paz.  I guess we dodged a bullet this time.

Looking towards the coast from the Mega shopping mall during a pause in the rainfall.
That is our little blue Dodge all by itself in the parking lot.
Oh look, the sun just peeked out for a few minutes.  Must be a good sign...

{GMST}23|2.4528|N|109|42.2616|W|San Jose del Cabo|San Jose del Cabo, Mexico{GEND}

Monday, October 15, 2012

Dangerous times

San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico

Our timing could be better!

We left Edmonton yesterday right on time and had an uneventful trip to Mexico via Vancouver.  We arrived on time and our rental car was waiting; too bad we had to drive at night, in the rain, through unfamiliar territory to find the hotel.  The GPS guided us unerringly to the golf course, not that that was where we wanted to go.  Eventually we got to the hotel and checked in OK.  Fortunately there was a good restaurant still open on a Sunday night, just down the street, so we didn't starve, and it was reasonably dry inside.


The only real casualty of the trip so far is my Kindle reader.  Somehow between Edmonton to here it gave up the ghost, and it was with us as carry-on baggage, not jambed into our usually over-stuffed checked bags.  This is getting pretty depressing as this will be the 3rd reader that we have killed in the last two years.  Maybe we just live too harsh a life for keeping these delicate items intact.

Today we awoke to a nice warm rainy day, all courtesy of hurricane Paul which is churning away just southwest of us.  Since the beach was out of the question, we used the opportunity to visit the local Mega, Walmart and Costco stores.  We found a lot of stuff, primarily at Costco (we don't have one of those in La Paz), that we have not had much luck finding in La Paz, so we shopped up a storm.  The trunk is full and our luggage is all in the hotel room at the moment.  Oh well, that is what back seats are for.

Driving along the coast here was quite an experience.  Rain is not that usual here and the highway was almost flooded out in places.  In spite of the rain, the scenery is pretty good - this is probably quite beautiful when the weather cooperates.  Attached are a couple of pictures from around our hotel - lots of green compared to the desert around La Paz.

Our real concern is with hurricane Paul.  He seems determined to hit the Baja peninsula within the next two days, causing storm warnings along both coasts now.  I am not sure what the highway conditions will be like trying to get to La Paz tomorrow.  At the current time it appears that the south end of the peninsula, where we are, will be spared from the full fury of the storm - with any luck La Paz will get missed as well.  If I was on a boat a little further north though, I would be hunkering down just now.

The streets are mostly deserted.
{GMST}23|2.4528|N|109|42.2616|W|San Jose del Cabo|San Jose del Cabo, Mexico{GEND}



Thursday, October 11, 2012

Quick, lets get out of here!

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Time is flying by.

Susanne has been having fun visiting her brother and family, especially her nephew, celebrating his upcoming birthday, watching him at his swimming lessons and helping decorate the house for Halloween, including the inevitable pumpkin carving session.


We also visited with my brother and sister-in-law who just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.  Time will tell if we ever get that far.

Mostly though, we have literally "spent" our time.  It seems like every day we find more "must-have" items for the boat, including a new dinghy.  We have purchased a new dinghy from a dealer in San Diego and now we just have to get it into Mexico - it is incredible how much you can do over the Internet these days.

Meanwhile, time marches on and fall is threatening to turn to winter.  Here is what we woke up to this morning.  I realize this snow will not stay and it is supposed to be warming up by the weekend but it is an indication we may have overstayed our welcome here in Edmonton.  On Sunday we make the big move back to Baja - we should see a 25 to 35 degree change in temperature.  This time next week we will probably be complaining about the heat.


{GMST}53|35.3928|N|113|32.361|W|Edmonton, Alberta, Canada|Edmonton, AB{GEND}